I went back to town by an express that had just come in. At Rugby the
bookstalls were open and I bought half-a-dozen morning papers, of all
kinds and sizes from twenty-four-page Diehard Conservative to the daily
pennyworth of revolution. I don't think I realized the full significance
of what June had told me till I had thoroughly digested at least a score
of their closely printed columns. First of all I read Karelsky's speech
verbatim in _The Times_. It was just what I expected--noisy, blatant,
self-assertive, full of impertinent jibes at other investigators, and
enlivened by quips that would have done credit to a Hyde Park orator.
The whole thing gave me the impression of being addressed to the man in
the street rather than to the Conference members; there was hardly a
sentence that the layman could not _think_ he understood. Theories which
most men would have advanced cautiously and modestly, Karelsky hammered
out with a sort of slanging, impudent dogmatism; there never could have
been, I think, such language spoken to a scientific assembly before.
In a long leading article _The Times_ struck a note of cautious
approval. "The fact that Herr Karelsky's methods of obtaining publicity
savour rather of the market-place than the laboratory, should not blind
us to the possibility--nay, even the probability--that he has made a
noteworthy contribution to the alleviation of human distress.... It
would seem that, if the cases he cites are authentic, he has indeed made
an important discovery.... Investigators in all countries will not be
slow in examining carefully all the details, many of which, in his
desire to tickle the ears of the groundlings, Herr Karelsky has
doubtless withheld...."
All the other papers had leading articles, but the tone of them varied
from straightforward approval to positively ecstatic adulation. It was
sickening to wade through some of the pages, especially those
of the picture papers, in which Karelsky's face, fat and smiling,
stared out from amidst a journalistic rake-up of all his earlier
stunts--rejuvenation, Thibetan monasteries, and the rest. "Hats Off To
Karelsky!" shouted the _Daily Wire_ rampantly, and even went so far as
to praise Karelsky for "talking to the public in words that the public
can understand." The _Messenger's_ stuff was evidently the work of old
'Pot' Higgins, for it quoted Tennyson, Goethe, Peter the Great, and
(incorrectly) Disraeli.... And to think that it was Saturday, and that
the scribes of the Sunday papers were already at work! Oh, my God....
Perhaps it is rather silly to have written that. But I am feeling now,
as I write it, what I felt during that journey from Rugby to Euston--not
so much hatred of Karelsky for being a mean thief, but disgust at the
way everybody was taken in by him. Perhaps I am prejudiced. Perhaps I am
bound to be. And, anyhow, it doesn't matter....
I reached London in time for a very late breakfast, and in the early
afternoon I went up to Hampstead to see Severn.